Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

86400.

That’s how many seconds are in each day.

That sounds like a whole lot, but let’s breakdown how we spend our time.

Let’s suppose you sleep for 7 hours a night as that’s what they recommend humans get each night.

There goes 25200 seconds and you have just over 60000 seconds remaining.

The average person spends an hour commuting to work/school - there goes another 3600 seconds.

If you go to school/work, you’re there around 8 hours more times than not, there goes 28800 and you have 8 hours left.

Everyone has to eat and eating takes time - there goes another two hours.

6 hours left.

You spend time with family in various ways, either by watching a movie, talking in the living room, playing outside, there goes another hour.

5 hours left.

The house doesn’t take care of itself, so you have to do some work around the house, there goes another 30 minutes.

You play on your phone or text friends, there goes another hour and a half.

Down to 3 hours.

We live out in the middle of nowhere, so that hour commute time that the average person has doesn’t really apply.

Add 30 minutes to that, add 30 minutes of doing some extra work around the house, add 30 minutes to doing homework and 30 minutes browsing the internet or reading a book and you’re left with what? 1 hour.

36000 seconds.

Every family is different.

Every person is different.

Maybe you’re up from the crack of dawn, don’t require any sleep, and you work all day long - seriously, some of you are that way and praise the Lord for that!

But maybe you’re the person who goes to school, gets home and you have all afternoon to yourself to do whatever you want.

To all of us this morning, how do you spend your time?

If you were to make a pie chart with your 86400 seconds each day, how would the pie chart look?

Would there be some areas that you would be shocked how much time you spend doing things that don’t have much significance?

Would you be shocked how much time you spend driving and literally doing nothing more than playing music?

Would you be a little bit convicted of the things that you do and the things that you fail to do?

If all of us answer honestly, we all have areas to improve in how we budget our time.

In Scripture we talk about giving sometimes in relation to finances and many people are stuck with the 10% outline given to us in the Old Testament.

10% is a great starting point.

It’s a great minimum, but think about giving for a moment.

Do we just give financially?

No.

We also give with our time.

Does God just want 10% of you?

Couples who are married, if you just spent 10% of your time with your boyfriend/girlfriend whenever you were dating, do you think that relationship would have grown like it should have?

Absolutely not.

Christ doesn’t want 10% of you.

He demands all of you.

He gives us what we have and we are commanded to steward it wisely and yes that includes finances but it certainly includes our time.

Whenever we look around in our world today, many people are concerned for a variety of reasons.

Many Christians are upset and uncertain and there is a temptation to spend all of our time focused on ourselves and on internal matters.

Friends, the reality that Scripture gives us is that the end has begun.

As the expression says, we’re a second away from midnight.

The Holy Spirit has come and we are called to go and make disciples - not to have the Holy Spirit and sit on our hands and waste our days away on Netflix and books.

We are called to rise and redeem the time.

There is no time to waste!

As we will see in the book of Acts this morning, we must pay attention and get to work, because the last days are here.

The Time Has Come (14-17a)

Have you ever been in a situation where someone slanders you?

They’re spreading lies about you publicly and what they are saying isn’t particularly nice?

If you’ve ever gone to public school, you’ve undoubtedly experienced this reality.

We left off last week with some of these Jews from around the world sneering and saying that these followers of Jesus are drunk on some new wine.

Whenever someone says something false about you there are a couple of different ways that you can proceed.

You can fight fire with fire and lots of people do this.

An eye for an eye!

If you spread a lie about me, I’ll spread a lie about you.

Others cower down and complain but don’t do anything about the problem.

What does Jesus say to do in such situations?

Turn to them the other cheek.

What a revolutionary concept for our world.

Peter addresses these people who make this claim and he says that everyone needs to pay attention because he and these others aren’t drunk… They’re filled with the Holy Spirit.

It’s only 9 in the morning so obviously they’re not drunk because it’s too early.

Some people try to read things into the text and say that Jesus and His followers never drank wine.

You have to do some theological gymnastics to make that work because we are told that Jesus turned water into wine and we see the practice occasionally in the church, especially with the Lord’s Supper - they didn’t have grape juice back in the day.

Peter isn’t getting defensive here, rather he’s making a bit of a joke.

It’s too early to be drunk because its 9 in the morning.

Furthermore, in studying Jewish history, 9am was normally an hour in which the people would pray and they would eat after that point.

Peter is correcting their misunderstanding in a lighthearted way.

He gains their attention, makes a joke of sorts and then proceeds to tell them the significance of what has happened!

So what is the significance?

What has transpired?

What is the big news?

Peter quotes from Joel 2 in the coming verses to share with these Jews what has happened.

It’s no longer about waiting for this time in the future… No, God has sent His Spirit.

As FF Bruce says, “This is it!”

The time has come.

How many of you enjoy watching a good war movie or action film?

During these types of films there often is a time in which the main character or “good guys” are preparing for a fight or battle and a leader steps up and delivers a speech to pump everyone up for the upcoming conflict!

Just as the general would give such a speech to his soldiers, Peter is giving this opening call to action in his sermon here.

No more waiting.

That time has come and gone.

Now is the time to act.

Why is it the time to act?

Because verse 17 says that in the last days, God will pour out His Spirit.

What does it mean by the last days?

Whenever you were a senior in high school, you had a countdown to graduation.

For many of you, whenever January and February rolled around, you knew specifically how many days you had until you were done!

You knew when your last day was.

But what happened afterward?

After you graduated, did things change?

Certainly.

Did you still do things, though?

Yes.

Some went to college while others entered the workforce.

Even though that last day of school came and went, you still had things to look forward to - just like the student who has their last day of junior year and begins to look ahead to their senior year immediately afterward.

In Scripture we see a lot of talk about the last day or the last days.

Is that talking about the end of one year in school?

No. It’s talking about the end of life as we know it and we are living in those days right now, friends.

I’m not just talking about the 21st century either… I’m talking about the entire history of the church has been lived in light of the reality that the last days are here.

Some people describe this reality by dividing life as we know it into 4 realities.